“I”… A terrific performance let down by an uninspired, exhausting movie

Is there another filmmaker as fascinated by the double role as Shankar? (Even the frivolous Jeans is riveted by the sight of twins.) Where others employ this trope as merely a means to magnify the hero – see two stars for the price of one! – or maybe to flesh out the separated-at-birth scenario so popular in the masala format, Shankar uses the device to split open the protagonist’s psyche. In films like Mudhalvan and Gentleman – where it’s not two roles so much as two faces of the character (journalist/Chief Minister; mild-mannered entrepreneur by day/vigilante by night) – the second “character” is made to do things the first one cannot, and in Sivaji, the bald-headed persona was essentially the hero assuming another “face” in order to continue where he left off. This split was carried out to the extreme in Anniyan and Enthiran, where the other roles weren’t just assumed by the protagonist but birthed by him. In the former, which gave the leading man three roles to play, the driving force was a psychiatric disorder, and in the latter, the Evil Twin was “invented” by the Good Twin as a reflection of himself, in his own form. For all its problems, Enthiran marked a departure point in Shankar’s career because, for the first time, the second role wasn’t that of a vigilante or a do-gooder out to clean up society, but a confused, gone-berserk manifestation of the protagonist’s id. All of which is another way of saying that I had quite a few expectations of I, which arrives four years after Enthiran, after teasing us with trailers featuring a regular-looking Vikram and a hunchbacked avatar.

But I is just more of the same – it’s the old vigilante scenario, except that the villains don’t represent a microcosm of society. This time, it’s purely personal. The evildoers in I mess up the hero’s life and he embarks on revenge. After a point, the film begins to remind us of Aboorva Sagotharargal, where a noxious substance results in the hero’s “deformity,” and when he discovers how he came to be this way, he doles out punishment in a variety of inventive ways. (Even the parrot from that film finds an equivalent: a faithful dog.) For a while, I is innocuous fun. We meet Lingesan (Vikram), a gym rat who’s in love with a model (Diya, played by Amy Jackson) he keeps seeing in magazines and on TV and on billboards. As his best friend Velu, Santhanam contributes a few laughs and keeps things light, and Vikram, too, does no heavy lifting outside the gym. He is relaxed, charming, and he draws us to this nobody who wants to be a somebody. In an amusing scene, he participates in a body-building championship and dances to Azeem-o-shaan shahenshah, his “choreography” made up entirely of poses that show off his muscles. There’s more showing off, courtesy the technical departments, in the Mersalaayiten music video – the song’s pep is complemented by a series of well-imagined, well-staged visual effects.

But once Lingesan meets Diya and gets a makeover, the film turns tedious. Since Anniyan, Shankar has run out of ideas for storylines for the “normal guy” character – we need to wait for the second half in order to get to the real story, with the “other guy” character, and so we bide time with lavishly shot (but very generic-looking) song sequences (music by AR Rahman) and a patience-sapping love angle. Shankar’s never been the most sensitive of filmmakers, and there’s never much use in expecting these “mass films” to depict politically correct attitudes (Diya’s suitors reject her because she may not be a virgin) – still, the track with a transgender makeup artist (Ojas M Rajani) made me squirm. Things become slightly better once the focus shifts to the hunchback, but even these portions come with a strong sense of déjà vu. There’s no urgency, no tension, not one surprising moment in the narrative – even the mastermind-villain’s identity is evident from the minute we set eyes on him.

There’s a hint of subtext in the beauty-and-the-beast premise. I is set largely in the world of advertising, where looks matter, and the biggest suffering one can endure, according to the film, is the loss of these looks. But it’s understandable that these themes aren’t elaborated – no film made on this kind of budget, with gargantuan images from PC Sreeram, can afford to traffic in that kind of nuance. What’s surprising, though, is that even the entertainment aspects are glossed over. There’s a great masala moment that involves undone shoelaces, but elsewhere – in the fights, in the revenge scenarios – there’s a distinct lack of freshness. A story this pulpy should have been way more exciting.

And moving, too. In over three exhausting hours, we get just one human-sized moment, when Lingesan collapses in the gym due to over-exertion and we sense his desperation to win the championship. Everywhere else, I leaves us with the impression of watching a giant machine grinding away. In films like Mudhalvan, Shankar made us feel for his characters. Here, there’s nothing to make us care – nothing, except Vikram’s performance as the hunchback. Despite the pustules on his face, the swollen lower lip, the horrifying emaciation – the makeup and the physical transformation are both top-notch – he does his darnedest to make us care for the character, using his voice, his eyes. But beyond a point he has nothing to do, nothing to play – he’s all dressed up and he has nowhere to go.

Totally agree with your views on I. I felt the same. It was as though Vikram delivered a knock-out punch in a boxing ring set up for him by Shankar but the director failed to bring in quality opponents to the ring (read characterisation & setup of the villains).

Having said that, I had this dilemma while reviewing if Shankar needs to be credited for letting Vikram deliver what he does. To turn it into a generic question, do you think a writer-director deserves a note of appreciation for letting an actor deliver a great show, even if his screenplay is exhaustive? I thought for long & decided to make that note in my review. Wanted to know your thoughts & what better case to use than ‘I’!

I’m yet to see this film and it seems the film’s going to be much disappointing if reviews (tweets and all that) are to be believed… considering the fact a Shankar film has released after few years (Nanban does not really count) and the expectations are greater!

Vikram has to take the blame. He needs to know whether the script is worthy enough of committing three years of his life to it. He similarly wasted two years for the crappy Bheemaa. Have we known of any other actor of similar immense potential before, in any cinema industry , to have destroyed his career this way ? When are we going to see a Vikram movie which has something other than this man to talk about?

While the title of the review calls the performance terrific, there is hardly any elaboration in the write up on why it is terrific. Did you have to run to the loo before you wrote the last paragraph and was the power on your laptop running out? On a serious note, that’s being a little dishonest as a critic.

Agree with your review. Watched a movie FDFS after a long time and that too a Shankar’s, expecting a masala cracker. Instead it turned out to be a so-so romantic comedy merging into a just about okay revenge story without creating an impact in either of the categories.

Visuals were stunning, Acting top notch, music was pulsating enough, Choreography interesting in quite a few places but the story and screenplay were a letdown. For the first time, Shankar reminded me that he comes from the SAC movie school of the yore, through the villains and their scheming scenes. 25 to 30 yrs rewind to “sattam oru …” series. Even I thought of Aboorva sagodharargal 🙂

Amy Jackson carried off those skimpy (probably the most skimpiest tamil cinema has ever seen) dresses pretty well without looking vulgar. Also, all those crass scenes involving casting couch, sanitary napkins, bra, google, youtube (new definitions for the above two) were made palatable by the lead actors involved. Santhanam salvaged quite a few minutes here and there.

The movie would’ve been a better thriller if it had a strong editor with a running time of around 2 hrs (could’ve been similar to Ghajini with a similar backdrop atleast in the impact). Vikram, he has a knack doesn’t he? Poor soul might have to contend with a filmfare for the three years spent, if lucky. Perhaps, Shankar is missing Sujatha more than anyone else!

Sivaram L:a writer-director deserves a note of appreciation for letting an actor deliver a great show

I don’t think there’s one definite answer for this. In general, if an actor delivers bad performances elsewhere but does well under X director, then you can make a case that X had an impact on the performance. With a good actor like Vikram, it’s harder to credit X, though X must have definitely had a say in the tone of acting, etc.

Jeeva Pitchaimani: He needs to know whether the script is worthy enough of committing three years of his life to it. He similarly wasted two years for the crappy Bheemaa.

From the little I’ve interacted with people in the industry, I’ve realised that a big-name director + random script >> small-time director + great script.

Maybe it has to do with these factors:

(1) If the big-name director’s film bombs, then he’s also blamed. But if the no-name guy’s film bombs, then all blame is on the actor.

(2) Distributors, TV channels etc. (i.e. the whole network that’s about the business end of cinema) trust big-name directors more. So financing becomes easier, a film won’t be stalled midway, etc.

(3) The trust that a big-name director “knows what he is doing.” That he “has experience” etc.

There could be many more.

Nishanth: there is hardly any elaboration in the write up on why it is terrific

About the first character – “Vikram, too, does no heavy lifting outside the gym. He is relaxed, charming, and he draws us to this nobody who wants to be a somebody. ”

About the second character – “Here, there’s nothing to make us care – nothing, except Vikram’s performance as the hunchback. Despite the pustules on his face, the swollen lower lip, the horrifying emaciation – the makeup and the physical transformation are both top-notch – he does his darnedest to make us care for the character, using his voice, his eyes.”

bart: About Amy carrying off those outfits without looking vulgar, it’s mainly about how comfortable you are. A lot of Indian heroines (esp. tamil heroines) just don’t look comfortable in revealing clothes and it shows. But if you see Indian ramp models, a lot of them are very comfortable and they pose beautifully, without a smidgen of self-consciousness.

“with a good actor like Vikram, it’s harder to credit X, though X must have definitely had a say in the tone of acting, etc.”

where was the “good actor” in Bheema, rajapattai, thaandavam etc.?

Vikram’s perception of acting itself is shallow. He thinks great physical transformations and gory makeups=great acting. I cant remember the last time he played a role really well in a regular guy character. Maybe 1st half of Sethu? The media hypes all his gruelling routines and regimens, like they used to do with Kamal in the 90s. But Kamal had much more than just that to offer

And I also thought that Caravan piece you wrote on Vikram was too long(almost like a mini-biography) and a bit bizarre considering he hadnt had a decent outing in about a decade. His story of early days struggles was also well published long time back

“About the second character – “Here, there’s nothing to make us care – nothing, except Vikram’s performance as the hunchback. Despite the pustules on his face, the swollen lower lip, the horrifying emaciation – the makeup and the physical transformation are both top-notch – he does his darnedest to make us care for the character, using his voice, his eyes.””

Interesting, this then leads to the big question as to what you think is the role of make up in performance. Some like Kamal that think the appearance (and therefore the effort behind it or the result) is as crucial to the performance as the acting itself. In a way, they think it is an integral part of the performance. While you seem to be using the word “despite” as if to say the make up is an impediment.

I felt cheated, I couldn’t believe it was the same Shankar that made this movie made some of my all time favorite masala movies (read Indian, Mudhalvan, Gentleman, etc.). All the side characters looked like caricatures, the portions in China were prosaic and most of all there was no ingenuity in the writing. Sorry to say I didn’t like the initial ‘comedy’ scenes with Santhanam (someone like power star has no place in a Shankar movie). There was no empathy for the hunchback when he was treated like a beggar by Amy as I was never invested in any of the characters.

Surely a few people in Shankar’s team must have realized this monstrosity in the making. Why did no one intervene to say it? Is it the fear of antagonizing a big director? I feel bad for Vikram who spent more than 2 years working on this project.

@Vijay: I beg to differ. Vikram is one of the good actors we have in Tamizh, who could pull off variety of characters. For e.g.. Consider Ravanan, Abishek and Vikram. The crew, the characterisation and story were same, but we could see a huge difference in the output between the two. That is where Vikram stands..

He transforms himself to the director’s requirement which is what needed from an actor. In Anniyan, he was able to pull of three characters with ease with no major physical transformations and Deivamathirumagal was another one were he pulled of the challenged character with effect.

The only place where Vikram needs to concentrate is choosing scripts, feel he is giving more importance to his characte than the story as a whole.

BR – You could unleashed some more of your frustration. I was on #அதைஅடக்குஅடக்குஎன mode through out the film.

Was not surprised how terrible the film was as I have been expecting a Shankar film that stinks as bad as this one for a while now, was not surprised when Shankar fans passionately defended the film when we were walking out, but was stunned to know few people genuinely couldn’t guess who the main villain is. How is this even possible, boss?! (And, with you about Ojas’ sequences, I was curious (not in a good way) when I heard about the casting and yet Shankar managed to exceed my expectations.

Also – trivia – Santhanam’s line about ப்பா ப்பா sound made by Venniraadai Moorthy, in English subtitles, uses “male frog” instead of Moorthy 😀

Probably Rangan. I expected the transmogrification from the handsome hunk to the hunchback to be as chilling as in District 9. Shankar had been acquitting himself reasonably well with his simple forward narration, flashback detour and climax technique for so long. The non-linear treatment removed all the fizz from the narrative since we were already primed up to see where Lingesan was heading. But Shankar used to be one of the few masala directors who were good at staging even the most under-written sequences for a long time. We probably do not have even one good masala movie director now in Tamil cinema….

Aravindan: Hahaha. The minute I saw the main villain I knew he was… well, the main villain. And I’m one who can NEVER guess who the bad guy is, even in the most obvious Poirots and Marples 😀

SPOILERS AHEAD

Yeah, and the way the trans character was portrayed was quite sad. So someone rebuffs you — and this is your reaction? Also the flirting etc. was almost caricature-ish, like one of the “ali” characters in the comedy track of some random movie. But everyone around me was laughing hard, so maybe it’s just me…

Jeeva Pitchaimani: Yes, I too was very puzzled by the choice of non-linear narration. Maybe they thought the single flashback has become too much of a Shankar cliche, so let’s do away with it — but the result was that we knew how everything was going to play out and the only question was when.

Quite an I-rony, that for a movie costing 180+ crores to make, leaves you wondering if it is really worth the 180 rupees you spent.

Somebody should ‘Chai-Sit’ Shankar and tell him that he is getting too overboard and getting too lost in styling his films; And that his niche is all too a cliche now.

His non-linear edits and flashbacks are all too obvious these days. More than us, Shankar is missing or should miss Mr (Sujatha) Rangarajan.

We do know that Shankar is the rock-star director in India – for the eyecandy songs, but this is such a passe. I seriously cribbed on the Ennodu Nee Irundhal song. How can somebody really waste these lines:

Plus, When you are wondering if you should show apathy or empathy to the characters – how can you ridicule human deformation with PJ’s. I found it insensitive. And that transvestite-dig is getting too lousy by the day. Looks like gore and cheap humor are becoming the bane of Tamil cinema now. God bless our நூத்தம்பது ரூபா.

With so many rants, let me culminate with this – I went to see I for PC Sreeram; But i left the theater thanking heavens for Amy Jackson.

Verdict: i-PHONEY

PS: Your comment, “I is just more of the same” – sums it all. Also thanks for the pointer to Aboorva Sagodharargal, (I was scratching my head for vague similarity of something) – that’s why we love reading your blog.

@brangan A curious question regarding Vikram not exactly related to this movie. How many common-man like characters that he has acted and created an impression. Be it Kasi, Anniyan, Pithamagan, I, etc, all the characters are driven by the eccentricity of the role that he portrays, and giving a unique nature, so that people dont often find a comparison. Agreed that he puts on hard work for movies like I, Pithamagan, etc, which should be appreciated very well. But I feel when it comes to praising his acting skills*, he hasn’t shown enough results in normal man roles, which does not require a prescribed definition of the character by the director. What is your opinion on this ?

*This question is caused by irritating comparisons found in social media equating Vikram with Kamal Hassan.

Isnt there a song in Boys that goes – “Old’ellam thalli po” ? Well, it is time for Shankar to stop. Because the audience have moved on. And we have some absolutely fantastic movie makers now – no need for this 80s/90s trash – same story. I doubt if he even writes a script. And we are in the best age of Tamil cinema. I hope the audience does not fall for the gimmicks Shankar has pulled off in the past 20 years and sends a message that we have changed for the better.

I wonder if the very existence of the whole movie is to be a magnificent stage-set to showcase Vikrams’s stellar talent? Have been watching KB’s work lately since his demise. His formula was simple. Just try to make a great movie and choose hungry actors and let them loose, they will showcase themselves. Solid stuff.

Despite all the groans about the transgender scenes in this movie, the icicle inserted into PD’s *** in “Kadhalan” movie still retains its proud position for being the most disgusting scene ever shot by Shankar. Even the coackroach-rice-Sundayspecial-for the Governor’s prospective S-I-L, left some scars on an naive 8 year old then. I would look at brinjal in rice and yell “cockroach”.

Yet to watch this. So, skipping the spoilers and heading straight here. But heard a lot of W-o-M that it’s disappointing. Came here to check and you seem to be saying the same. What a waste of time for poor Vikram if that was true. Catching it tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. Will come back to rant.

But then, this same-day review seems to have become inevitable eh? How depressing! I don’t know why I’m reminded, of all things, of this Chinna Thambi song “Kuyila pidichu..”! 😦

I got out of the movie(went for the premiere in bay area) feeling it wasn’t neither bad nor good
Reading reviews including yours is giving me some perspectives now. I think the positive was for Vikram and Amy(to my surprise, I liked her!). Negatives were many.

There was a strong Anniyan deja vu for me
– “graphics” to capture the transition between ambi-anniyan, lingesan-hunchback
– various techniques of torture ala Garudapuranam style
– a fat villain subjected to torture

and a few more.

The fight sequence in China was boring to the hilt. I almost started pulling my phone out and to check whatsapp. Also, the use of the stunt double was so obvious there.

But the most funny thing was the heroine’s mom speaking hindi throughout, there was not even an attempt to lip-sync. I was most interested in figuring out her hindi than what she actually was saying 🙂

I think Shankar’s style is close to the point of extinction at this point. He better think of something new quite soon esp. if he is going to make 190 min movies this day and age!

Also, Vikram although good, didn’t stand out for me because there was a certain sense of superficiality in his character development. When I walked back from Anniyan, I really remembered Ambi. That didn’t happen for me here. Mudhalvan, Anniyan, Gentleman — all these had fine moments for the hero spending time with his family. Here, the parents were mere props.

“Shankar’s never been the most sensitive of filmmakers, and there’s never much use in expecting these “mass films” to depict politically correct attitudes (Diya’s suitors reject her because she may not be a virgin) – still, the track with a transgender makeup artist (Ojas M Rajani) made me squirm.”

I actually did not look at it this way. I do agree that he is not the most sensitive of filmmakers, but in my opinion, he has tried to stay politically correct. Yes, the few scenes which tried to evoke humor out of transgender stereotypes made me squirm too, but the scene ended with a long shot of the transgender crying lying in the bed. This is a small attempt to show his stance that transgenders can fall in love too. We, at this point, think that Lingesan does not like her because she is a transgender. However, in the hotel room scene where the main villain is revealed (this is a vera level scene where all the supposedly “dangerous” villains blandly declare, one after the other, why they did what they did, before finally revealing the “surprise” main villain 😀 and I have to write Spoiler alerts before starting my comment!) Ojas taunts him about not falling in love with her because she is a transgender. I don’t know if it was just me but this is what I had to read from this brilliant reaction shot of Vikram – ‘I did not like you not because you are a transgender, but because I am in love with someone else’. I am saying, apart from clearing the air regarding sexism in the former shot, he takes an extra step in the latter to show that even his lead is not sexist! Regarding the reaction to the rebuff point you have raised, I guess it is more of a character graph miscalculation than it has to do with the gender of the character. Most of the villains were given random motives anyway. I guess we are so used to misogyny in our cinema that the same jokes with, say, a dark-looking or a fat girl would not have been discussed as much, which is kind of sad. We probably might have overlooked it as another Angavai-Sangavai sequence. So I am glad that this is being talked about.

Even though I have always had problems with the way Shankar deals with social issues, the issues that he takes up always resonated with me at some level – be it corruption from Indian, or black money from Sivaji, even the ‘thani manidha ozhukkam’ from Anniyan. That is why I am pretty sure he would not be so insensitive when casting a transgender in a major role.

Also, regarding Diya’s suitor rejecting her, we always knew it was just a made-up story by the main villain right?

I am yet to watch this movie and I feel bad reading the negative reviews because this seems to be YET another movie that wastes Vikram’s acting chops. I remember Robert De Niro once saying that “the talent is in the choices.” If that were to be true, then Vikram is terminally untalented. Rajapattai? Aiyyaiyo…Thaandavam? Aiyyaiyaiyo Aiyyo…But acting wise, he definitely has stuff. I mean, forget about the 2nd half of “Sethu.” The first half of “Sethu” was what made me a huge fan of Vikram – telling nuances in his facial expressions, be it falling in love or expressing anger….my fav moment was when he tells Abitha (referring to Mohan Vaidya), “Avan nallavan thaan…aana, avana kalyanam pannitu nee epdi sandhoshamaa iruka mudiyum? Rendu perum avuthu vittutu maaathi maathi paen paake vendiyathu thaan…ipdi IPDI!”

Screenplay is the area where Shankar’s movies have seen a drastic dip in quality over the past decade. For how taut the 3-hour long “Indian” was and for how fast-paced the first half of “Muthalvan” was, “Anniyan” “Sivaji” “Endhiran” were all over the fricking place. There was no flow, no momentum and no satisfying denouement. I remember the excitement in “Indian” as Nedumudi Venu closed in on Indian Thatha…the whole meticulous -> meticulous old man -> meticulous old terrorist investigation was so well done. The attention to detail (such as the handwriting analysis) and the logical flow were all absent in his subsequent movies…sad that the reaction to “I” is IO (Aiyyo!)

@Sam: I’m glad it was Amy Jackson and not Samantha. Samantha would’ve suited this 5 movies ago, but she’s now too much into loosu-ponnu mode. Amy Jackson was one of the highlights of the movie for me; not only did she carry off very skimpy clothes pretty well, she looked quite beautiful too.

Maybe my average has been pulled down by recent big name flops like Lingaa and Kaviyathalaivan, but I found ‘I’ decent. If only they had done the 45 min china portion in 5 mins, it’d have been a good masala watch.

To me the best Shankar offering in terms of a solid story, cohesive, tight screenplay where even the so called comics, the showy second heroine are a part of the narrative, scale, in-your-face grandeur, chart topping music was Indian (’96). Mudhalvan (’99) comes next. In fact Gentleman, although a ’93 product, doesn’t appear to be dated.

Problems arose when he wanted to do these consciously fun, bubblegum, youth stuff like Kaadalan, Jeans and Boys.

We in Andhra looked forward to his movies because he was just enough Tamizh in his sensibilities — yet different from the Haris, Linguswamys, K S Ravikumars, Pazhanis etc. — and offered serious yet bubblegum cinema with wider reach, scope crossing regional barriers. Even if it meant that there were no attempts at nuance, texture, restraint in technique or story telling. Yes, the Telugu folks whom no serious credit is given to for being a great discerning audience get very discerning and expect the world of from other language offerings!

Star-crazy Andhrites put Shankar, the director on a pedestal that they are increasingly itching to kick him off from. Pity!

i watched the film yesterday evening show. I was puzzled for some time with not feeling that pull or love when Lingesan (as Koonan) struggles in his revenge path. I am assuming that Shankar wanted the audience to weep for Ennodu Ni Irunthal but far from it, I felt like watching some plastic. Vikram was in a zone of his own but the antagonists were a big let down. In a larger than life story, a protagonist is only as good as the scheming villains and this was a big let down. I loved Vikram’s efforts but left feeling why I could only appreciate but not empathize with any of his characters. Technically P.C has done a brilliant job. but a wafer thin storyline predictable screenplay just killed it. Additionally I did not find the alternate love angle funny at all. The saving grace was the shot that showed Osman crying but I am wondering if it wasn’t obvious that Lingesan was in love with Diya and he wasn’t gay 🙂 Plus I wanted to laugh when the doctor joins the villains in lighting his cigarette. Seemed like a really cheap masala movie scene

Python: I am not going near the Kamal-comparison angle — for one, Kamal has a greater body of work, and far more diversity in the parts — but Vikram, I think, is pretty good in the non-eccentric roles, i.e. the common man roles. He was terrific in films like “Majaa”, “Dhool” and “Saamy” (reg. the latter, see Suriya in “Kaakha Kaakha” to know the difference)

Sam: The part was essentially that of a mannequin, and given Samantha’s ease with bikinis in “Anjaan” I don’t think she’d have been aa misfit here.

oneWithTheH:Amy(to my surprise, I liked her!)

Idhula enna periya surprise? 😉 😀

R. Gowtham / Vijayakumar: No, even before that scene where Main Villain talks to Diya’s mother, there’s the hint the mother gives that it’s difficult to find guys for Diya because of the ex-boyfriend factor. I thought the non-virgin angle was implicit here, and Main Villain just made it more explicit.

Reg, the Osma angle, I hated the way the character was made a caricature. It’s one thing to show her being attracted to a guy, but from the first scene, she’s pretty much harrassing him sexually, fingering him and being suggestive — none of which suggested love; more like lust. Imagine the same scenario being played out between a guy and a girl where a nympho-girl can’t stop making sexual advances on the guy… And then, we’re suddenly meant to “feel” for Osma because Lingesan rejected her “pure love” or something. WTF!

Good review. Seeing some of the comments I get a point. Somehow there is a misconception or school of thought especially in Tamil cinema offlate that real acting means change your appearance, become disfigured , become a old lady , become a transgender , become a mentally retarded, appear as a grave digger, autistic,become blind,deaf , dumb or have split personality . This is our definition of being different. No focus whether will people care for the character’s? Will they root for them?

I think it’s time to look at other move industry and learn one or two things. Just look at the osar winning performance or people who are nominated for the last few years. All of them normal people portraying characters which are normal people. Am not telling the roles below are top notch but somehow we rooted for these character’s one way or the other.

Let’s take even Bollywood , Ishan in Taare Zameen Par, or Sail Ali Khan in Omakara, Tabu in Haider, Kangana in Queen, Vidhya in Kahani, Sonakshi in Lootera, Aamir in PK or 3 idiots. All are normal people and still those characters , resonated with us and we rooted for them.

Somehow there is a misconception if we do physical transformation that is different which is not. I understand that there is lot of hard work behind this. But still a small boy in Taare Zameen Par can move us rather than disfigured Vikram in I.

The crux of this movie is not so different from Enthiran – there, the heroine rejects a robot’s advances and here the hero rejects a transgender’s advances. I am afraid Shankar is simply not thinking (sorry for the cliche) “out of the box” in terms of scripts. Yes, he adapts technology like no other Indian film-maker but his movies have started to feel hollow from Anniyan (where Ambi genuinely evoked sympathy, not that it was very realistic). Sivaji was downright boring and Enthiran was interesting in parts (only for the attempt).

I was thinking Mani Ratnam was losing it as a film maker but I have to think again now. His films are not what they were but you cannot fault him for not trying different themes. And, thats what keeps me anticipate his next movie. With I, somehow even the theatrical trailer failed to light up my senses. I am afraid when Shankar might just fade out like Subhash Ghai – a set of oft-repeated themes that just failed to catch the audience’s imagination after a while.

Prasad:Somehow there is a misconception or school of thought especially in Tamil cinema offlate that real acting means change your appearance, become disfigured…

But that’s not just in acting here. It’s in all departments of filmmaking.

Many of our films have loud, overbearing background scores even when the scenes are working perfectly with just performance and dialogue.

Many of our films have random flashy editing rhythms — so you can “see” the editor’s work.

Many of our films have grand locations and colors and images, so we can “see” what a superb job the cinematographer has done. (99% of these films won’t have a SINGLE shot that’s been framed well wrt the events unfolding.)

It’s almost as if we want “kudutha kaasukku…” level attempts everywhere, and the acting just follows.

If you ask filmmakers, they’ll say something like B and C centres wanting this level of intensity because they don’t like subtle stuff — but talking of “Kaakha Kaakha” in the comment above brings to mind how restrained the performances, dialogues and relationships were in that film and it was one of the year’s biggest hits. (Of course that film had other problems, like the loud BGM, but the basic stuff was restrained.)

So you CAN find films here and there that work at low decibel levels — but they are rare.

Vivek: I don’t think you can compare Shankar with people like Mani Ratnam, Kamal, Mysskin, Bala etc. The latter category consists of genuine filmmakers who — even if their films don’t work in the overall sense — will give you something to chew on in the “cinema” sense. Shankar is more like a ringmaster/entertainer — like Ghai, as you said.

Not that that’s a bad thing, but even in his worst films, someone like Mani Ratnam is not just a ringmaster/entertainer. His problems have more to do with reconciling what he wants to do these days with what he thinks the audience wants to see — which is why, for instance, the song sequences that were once his great strength are now looking like a big weakness, because they’re not an easy fit in the kind of stories he’s trying to tell now.

But even in these second-rung, third-rung films, you’ll find at least 30-odd minutes of genuine cinema (not just entertainment, but “cinema”). That’s quite different from the zone Shankar operates in — though to be fair to Shankar, I don’t think he’s really trying to make “cinema”. He’s happy being a ringmaster/entertainer.

Thank you Mr.Rangan, I am just happy that you actually replied to my comment! My day is made! 🙂

You do bring out nicely the difference between a Shankar and a Mani Ratnam. I am no expert but up until Boys, I thought Shankar did seem to have the few minutes of “cinema” in his movies. I guess the failure (or lukewarm response) of Boys perhaps played more on his psyche that he would have liked. Somehow, starting with Anniyan, he went into a full “template” mode – no characters, just caricatures (like someone pointed above). It is just the scale that has grown. And that is most disappointing.

Regarding Mani Ratnam – thanks for your perspective. For some reason, looks like he does not want to tear away fully the traditional ropes that bind him. For years (just before Dil Se??), he has said he wants movies with no songs and ever since all songs (in his movies) seem to be misfits! At least to me, your perspective explains why his once-great strength is now a weakness.

@brangan: Agreed. Yes I had a problem with the sexual advances that the character made too.

“Even before that scene where Main Villain talks to Diya’s mother, there’s the hint the mother gives that it’s difficult to find guys for Diya because of the ex-boyfriend factor. I thought the non-virgin angle was implicit here, and Main Villain just made it more explicit”

Why is it important for the director to make a politically correct standpoint in a scene like the above? This seems to be something that DOES happen in our society (the scene is still badly done).

Also, this seems to the weakest script yet from Shankar. I have always found his films taut even though we might need to suspend our logic at places. Here it looks like the script was written in haste – there was no emotional connect and the second half was a frustrating watch! And everyone is all praises for the cinematography in this movie. Am I the only one who did not find it all that great?

Brangan : Agree with you completely.It’s very true. Again need your comments on the selection of story again. Can’t we think of different stories,some interesting biopics or movies based on some interesting books? Or character’s who are not larger than Life? Why is that most of our (Tamil movies) all stories has to be manipulative and try to pull heartstrings and appear fake most of the times.

Let me quote some of themes which are considered “Different”. Glorify Poverty, caste ism, Violence ,Sex related crimes (Preferably based out of Madurai ) bring movies with Natural disaster’s as backdrop. Or big bang like Corruption, Black money, Politics, instill patriotism or themes like changing society.

No wonder we’re awe-stuck when we see a “Gone Girl” “Zodiac” or a “Argo” (Movies based on books) or Aviator, Lincoln, or The imitation game. (Biopics)

Just look at “The imitation game”. Amazing biopic about Alan Turing. It’s a war movie without a shed of blood. Just see how matured gay angle of Alan Turing has been handled!

And let’s take all our heroes including Rajni, Vijay , Ajith, Surya , Vikram ….. All of them probably will not sign anything below larger than life character’s. Not sure Why. This trend is not even in “Bollywood”. Even Aamir signs a “talaash” or a “Dhohi Ghat” or Ranbir “Signs a “Bombay Velvet” or “Rockstar” and Once in a while even Sharukh has given a “Swades” OR a “Chak de”.

Recently watched “Inside Llewyn Davis” for the 2nd time. It’s Just a story of a loser(muscian) what happens in his life. We can connect and emphatize with him from the from the first shot. And there is good dark humor throughout the film which even invlolves a track with a cat suported by a crackling sound track!!

A classic example of a simple character who is a big time loser but still we can relate to him.

See the Point is not about the budget again. It is about the “bent of mind” or intent of the director to show character’s or stories which we can relate to , different and not Manipulative.

Vijayakumar: No, it’s not important for the director or the film to be politically correct – I’m just saying the whole thing made me squirm and seemed (to me) to be in bad taste.

And yeah, the cinematography was solid work, but nothing inspired. But again, here, pretty pictures = good cinematography 🙂

Prasad: See, there are problems with making different movies here because the government won’t allow ticket prices to be raised, and there isn’t enough of a multiplex culture to support “different” films. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say this again — I find it puzzling that people in Chennai will go watch an “Udaan” but not an “Onaayum Aattukuttiyum.” Not to take anything away from “Udaan”, it’s a great movie — but why not give offbeat Tamil films a chance too?

There was this lovely little film called “Saivam” last year, and no one went and saw it. And if people don’t buy tickets and show their support, how will “different” movies get made? Even now, look at the number of comments “I” has got — despite everyone panning it. Look at the number of comments “Anjaan” got, “Lingaa” got — it’s as if people say, “I know I’m probably going to have a crappy time, and yet I’d rather fork out money for this big-star bug-budget movie rather than a “Burma” or a “Nedunchalai” or “Poovarasam Peepee”… ”

Yes, the occasional “Soodhu Kavvum” or “Jigarthanda” makes a splash, but I’d be interested to know how many people outside of Chennai/Coimbatore (i.e. the A centres) watched these films and how profitable (relative to cost) these films were.

Oh, and yes – “Inside Llewyn Davis” is an amazing film. And THAT is great cinematography 🙂

I dont understand why directors cannot buy stories ? With budgets so high, is it difficult to select stories, say from a contest ? And pay the winner a good payout. These are the days of kickstarter and indiegogo. Crowd sourced is the way to go.

“I find it puzzling that people in Chennai will go watch an “Udaan” but not an “Onaayum Aattukuttiyum.” “

Sorry to digress, but I would like to share a recent similar experience of mine. It was the night of 6th Jan, Tuesday. 9.30 pm. I drive to Vidya theatre, Tambaram to catch Kayal. The show is supposed to start at 9.45 pm. The guy in the parking lot tells me I am the first guy to come and they will need at least 20 people to run the show. I choose to wait. I call my parents in the meantime to catch-up and they ask me to return home. I still wait. There are 2 chairs near the entrance where two men in their 50’s are sitting, looking at the gate in anticipation. 15 minutes pass and there are 11 people now. The ticket guy is still hesitant to give out tickets. He makes a few calls and he is not smiling. He still does not open the counter. It is 9.55 now. 2 more guys come. Now he gives the tickets. We go in. The guy sitting near the entrance frisks me now. I say I want to use the washroom. They have locked it already. A guy escorts me through a dark corridor switching the lights on on the way to the washroom. On the way, I see people opening the closed snacks counters. There are more people working there than those who have come to watch the movie. I ask the guy escorting me if this is how most weekday shows are. He says yes. He also says they are going to drop Kayal and run PK for four shows.starting Wednesday. I come back to the screen. 13 people in a theater that can house more than 800. I choose the best seat for me, lights are off and the movie begins. The movie ends. As I take my car out, I see guys pasting posters of PK over that of Kayal and Maeghamann. What I thought about the movie was a totally different story, but that night, that experience leading to the movie was depressing, even though the show did happen.

I buy your point Rangan. But look at the way the big heroes operate in Tamil Cinema. Vikram was doing small good movies like Sethu,Pithamagan,Kasi etc when he was building his cult. Once he was done, he told openly in an interview that he is a star now and cannot do movies that cannot fetch less than 50 crore. As you may be aware, we have a new Tamil cinema movement (Soodhu Kavvum, Jigarthanda) now very much in its rudimentary stage. These directors are brimming with ideas and a multipurpose actor like Vikram can do wonders with them. But Vikram will not team up with them because like other stars , he charges 10 digit salaries that will never reconcile with their modest economics. Karthi too was a very similar case. He reached stardom predominantly through small movies (not experimental ones necessarily) , soon abandoned them , burnt his fingers and is finding his feet back with movies like ‘Madras’. The contention here is that these guys are essentially good actors and their vast market access will help small movies cut across barriers easily, in turn helping their stardom as well.

****SPOILERS AHEAD****
Shankar, as BR pointed out, might not be the most sensitive of filmmakers, but I believe he’s hit a new low this time. That makeup artist character, right from the first frame she appears in, makes you shuffle in your seat and by the time she’s reduced to tears for her “love” being rebuffed, you are waiting to throw up at the director’s choices. Without Sujatha, Shankar seems to have unleashed his own crass ideas with Santhanam’s nauseating brand of humour and the result is this abomination.

Agreed that they don’t have to be ‘politically correct,’ for a minimum, there used to be a certain consistency of characterisation in Shankar films. Even that is missing here. I mean, make fun of the transgender makeup artist and power star for cheap laughs, mock at people appearance routinely through the movie and then tell your close friend who’s now disfigured all encouraging stuff like ‘Hey, you’re my friend and will always be, no matter how you look.’ (This sentimental support part is the weakest for Santhanam.) OK, I’ll buy that, difficult as it may be to think you’ve achieved some rapid character transformation, or in other words, just grown up to become less of a donkey’s rear side. But then, the same guy who’s now expected to have become marginally more sympathetic goes to the disfigured villains and make more lame jokes about their condition, once again playing for laughs??

And the engineered happy ending during the credits?? What was Vikram thinking when he signed up for this?

And as others have said before, there was a serious deja vu of Anniyan throughout the second half. For all the big money they spent, there nothing imaginative about the stunt choreography, except perhaps for the first body builders’ fight. Especially in the last fight after Lee’s disfigurement, there was a prolonged stretch of that John character kicking him, which was supposed to pull at our heartstrings or something.. All I was wondering was when the tedious fight would come to an end, knowing that this John fellow too was going to end up disfigured.

The two non-ad duets were pretty generic, but I think both Ladio and Aila were well-picturized. Of course, Mersalayiten I’d definitely the pick of the lot. That said, there is this ‘Fair and Lovely’ ad right in the middle of the Aila song, which was the only brief stretch that evoked a genuine smile from me.

Amy Jackson is the most credible choice for the role of a model, and looks totally at home in her bikini. But, her lip sync was atrocious and the stretch where she talks in that north Madras lingo was so unintentionally funny.

For a movie that seems to come close to handling the tricky question of how much premium we attach to looks in this superficial society of ours, it has enough and more of body-shaming, and as if that weren’t enough, gratuitous slut-shaming of a transgender. All this in a predictable, overlong, boring and crass movie that has criminally wasted over 100 crores and 3 years of Vikram’s life. The only feeling while exiting the theatre is pity for Vikram, and even Amy to a much lesser degree.

Common, I see a lot of people criticising the movie, I don know why do u even compare this movie wid anniyan, every movie is different, the have their uniqueness, I somehow liked the movie, n I feel u have criticised way more than wat it actually deserved, yes few characters dint actually worrk good for de movie, lip syncing was exquisitely bad, and the script isn’t quiet strong, but other than that, I felt the movie was gud, at the end of the day, the impact was still there till the next day I woke up.

@BR With most of the Idiosyncrasies already being pointed out, I would like to focus on the BGM score for the movie. While ARR’s BGM has not always been impressive, I found his BGM score in “I” to be loud and distractive. There was not one single scene in the movie wherein the BGM registers.. infact I found the BGM score to be out of sync with what was happening on the screen and not for once do what it is supposed to do. Especially the BGM for fight sequence in China seemed totally out of sync and completely distracting. Is it just me ?? Can you share your observations on the BGM ??

Just watched the movie today and came out hugely disappointed!! Couldn’t agree with you more BR. The movie becomes exhausting and rather uneventful once Diya and Lingesan return from China. After a point, it just became plain annoying to see what Lingesan had in store for each of the antagonists one after another. Also, was it just me, or did the movie look kind of ‘cheap’ in production design when compared to Shankar’s previous ventures. For years, Shankar has been hailed as India’s answer to James Cameron. The one thing I’ve always come to expect from a Shankar film at the very least is a visual spectacle. But in ‘I’, except for ‘Mersalaayittaen’ and ‘Aila Aila’, in terms of scale, I found the rest of the movie to be hugely underwhelming. Even the action sequences looked ordinary and unimaginative, which definitely wasn’t the case with Anniyan, Sivaji, or Endhiran. For me, ‘I’ didn’t look anywhere near like the costliest movie made till date in Indian Cinema. What do you think BR?

Mr, Rangan – on one hand you have said (on other occasions) that you don’t want to see directors feeling apologetic or ashamed of their filmmaking traditions – but here you are cringing at what you regard as tasteless scenes. Tackiness and Tastelessness are – IMO – a part of the masala package. Are you developing Western sensibilities?

Had quite a few expectations on ‘I’, but the movie as you rightly mentioned was terribly letdown by bad screenplay.As always a great review 🙂 The revenge format reminded me of Anniyan. The 3 hrs running time made it a tedious watch. Did the movie warrant 4 antagonists? The china portions involving the transgender(Ojas) was cringeworthy and tacky. The scenes leading to the romance was not scripted well. If shankar had portrayed Ojas as a respectful and dignified character(in a totally different light), as being friendly with Vikram, it would have atleast instilled a sense of respect towards that community in ppl. Why is this community ridiculed in every movie? It is high time, filmmakers get over this tacky cliche. Or else,cutting down on the those scenes involving Ojas would have atleast trimmed down the movie by 20 minutes. Also, if the main antagonist as we all predicted in the beginning itself, did not happen to be Suresh Gopi in the end, but Amy’s mom,(with substantial reasoning), would it have been a surprise? Just my thoughts. In all, a crispier and taut screenplay would have made it a better watch. Feel sorry for Vikram… He is fabulous in the movie… 🙂 Definitely a hardworking and good actor.. Hope he gets to do some good projects in the future..

Havent watched the movie, but do want to butt in because I am surprised people are dissing Vikram’s acting capabilities.

As much as I am peeved with this makeup/.body weight transformation gimmicks, Vikram can still stand out if you take all that away.

I cant imagine any one else pulling off the Raavanan character except for him( not an actor worthy enough to be compared, still just how miserably did abhishek fail with the same role ) – that was a tightrope – a crazy one yet needed to show dignity and Vikram brought it out exactly as that. And he can easily do lighter roles too – he did pull off Saamy convincingly(seemed quite effortless too).

Definitely one of best actors we have.

PS: Cant bring in Kamal into this discussion because his contribution to Cinema has gone much beyond just an actor. His name should be spelled along with directors like Maniratnam.

Absolutely bang on BR !!! Could not agree with you more. The first half stood out as a “stud” , in terms of transformation , surreal visuals and jaw dropping Amy ; but the second half turned out to be a “dud”. Very insipid writing , a big let down from Shankar who fails to bolster the powerful performance of the protagonist. Shankar’s corner stone has always been the “lump in your throat” flashback moments (Gentleman , Indian) which gets revealed right at the end.I was waiting for something similar to happen in the second part of the narrative and it turned out to be an usual revenge saga ; a dump squib rather.

My heart goes out to Vikram, who has sculpted himself for I and shined from first frame to the last. As you rightly put it , Kenny was all decked up and right there in the middle , but nowhere to go.

“— it’s as if people say, “I know I’m probably going to have a crappy time, and yet I’d rather fork out money for this big-star bug-budget movie rather than a “Burma” or a “Nedunchalai” or “Poovarasam Peepee”… “

If the makers, after creating expectations, go for a safe bet in terms of content …why shouldn’t a saraasari audience go for a safe bet in terms of the movie he chooses to go? Nedunchalai and Poovarasam peepee were poorly marketed….Burma, there were no prime time shows if I remember right after the first week…..I cud never make it to the afternoon shows.

“I find it puzzling that people in Chennai will go watch an “Udaan” but not an “Onaayum Aattukuttiyum.”

Udaan was a silent little film that came and went. No big fuss with solid content. [Also, adhu ennavo therila, Anurag kashyap na(even only as a co- screen writer) ellarum poi pathudranga…]

Inside lewyn/wes anderson films come and go without much fuss….and every time i go for these movies, the hall is packed….probably niche audience…..

Mysskin hasnt got that…. yet.

Onaayum was loud. Mysskin was loud, as in, for quite some time I have seen him often repeating in many places that no one is watching good films, and that HE is making good films. Now, no one is gonna like that talk (however true it may be). That doesn’t really push an audience to go and watch a movie. How can a movie goer trust the film maker when he makes statements like “mugamoodi padame kadayadhu. Adha naa pannirkave koodadhu”. Why dint he make those statements prior to its release? Also, there is this peoples expectaion of a Mysskin film. But, question…..why wasn’t Onaayum recognised elsewhere….if Tamil audience are so bad as to not appreciate good cinema(not that I liked/understood Onaayum)

Saivam – reminded me of Vikram’s King, with the huge family and bonding stuff. What I felt it lacked was familiar faces that could cheer us up (which was there in king…watching Janakaraj was so much fun). The family here was full of strangers. I would have wanted to see a Nizhalgal Ravi/Janakaraj/Delhi Ganesh in that family. All I got to see was mega serial actors. It was neat, but that’s about it.

Am I the only one that thought this was the most unlike-shankar heroine character ever? Usually Shankar movies don’t even give this much of a role to the woman. I thought it was worth noting. Another thing that that’s exactly what makes this a full fledged love story for Shankar to handle and he crazily botches it up.

I don’t understand, Why Shankar having taken so long to make this film, couldn’t take enough time to script it well. To begin with, The “ladio” song could have been passed, The fight sequence with the body builders was too long and the next fight sequence in China was totally unnecessary, one could easily spot the dupe stunt actor. Do models make so much money in such a short time ? owning luxury sedans and living in bungalows. Transgender-hero crush track was again an extra. You know, when all the villains encounter the hunchback Vikram; they booze, laugh and make fun of him. It reminded me of an old MGR film (I’m a big fan of MGR!!). It was so dramatic and I couldn’t believe Shankar was in that room directing it. Why do all parents blackmail their daughters to get married immediately, whats the hurry mom ?. Finally where were the police when all this action was happening ?, felt the scope for a strong role was missed in the film.

Having said all this, one should not miss “I” for the whys?. Because, thanks to PC Sreeram, “I” is a treat to your eye.

“In Anniyan, he was able to pull of three characters with ease with no major physical transformations “

Remo was awful overacting and Ambi’s brahminical portrayal appeared forced. Kamal is the only actor who can pull off overtly brahminical characters like that with authenticity and without overdoing it.

Vikram is tolerable when he plays regular characters in masala films. When he tries to go serious it spells trouble.

Or Vikram seems to think that he needs to gets really showy for the big budget films with big name directors. I have heard him say once long back that he wants to be both Kamal and Rajni rolled into one. Unfortunately the results only indicate a bipolar disorder, Ambi-like, on screen.

Shankar and his family were watching the movie yesterday evening. They were five rows behind me. I think people (intellectual types) tend over analyze Shankar’s movies. I don’t think he is a Vishal Bhardwaj. He has different sensibilities and a different target audience. Being subtle or sensitive is not his game.

I thought it was decent and may be I felt that way after hearing mixed reviews that led to minimal expectations. I agree there aren’t many plot points in the film that will make you jump out of your seat. It’s more or less like a fairy tale and you know how things are going to move from the get go. There are a couple of songs that are like mini music videos/short films which I felt was very creative. Finally, I thought Vikram was excellent not because he was able to physically transform himself and wear all that makeup, but, because he was still able to emote/dance/fight despite all the prosthetics. He makes you care for the character (or maybe him?). Amy was surprisingly good, I think Indian audiences are so sensitized about their heroines being “fair & lovely” that you actually don’t find it weird to see her meld in a south indian milieu. But there are a few things that will make you frown – forced melodrama, crass comedy, slow pace and a far fetched plot. But, the audience seemed to like it and when the end credits rolled – people hooted and clapped. Shankar brought his entire family to the theater to watch the movie. I think it takes a lot of courage to bring your wife, kids and parents(?) to a movie that you made. It’s equivalent to having my family watch my appraisal meeting with my manager live :-). Thankfully, for Shankar, there were no cat calls that could have made him squirm and his kids go like….”idhukku dhaan ivalo scene-aaaa”.There were only shouts of appreciation. I think he must have been relieved and happy.

I liked your comments to Prasad. I am interested in exploring it further. At first blush, it’s tempting to make conclusions that a cinematic experience, in its true religious sense, has to be low decibel for discerning audience to soak into. Interestingly, as I type this, I am reminded of a scene in Vellithirai movie, where prakashraj argues with Prithviraj about how inevitably our film-making is all “high-decibel” – be it cinematography, acting, make-up- and he makes the point by telling how Indian women mourn their relatives’ death in a very “high-decibel” – loud oppari, chest beating and so on. He makes the point that our cultural expressions – probably among Section B and Section B audiences – are high decibel and films reflect that. My questions to you are

1) Can’t “high-decibel” film-making be a necessary tool to tell a particular kind of story – the mythical ones perhaps – in our cultural climate?

2) From my limited viewing experience, I have seen how highly impactful movies use “low-decibel” film-making tools to creative that implosive effect, where the movie’s greatness is determined by the “high-decibel” responses it evokes inside you. Following this train of thought, it’s easy to think of “low-decibel” tool as an aesthetic choice which enhances the experience of the movie.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Mr. Rangan – it’s about time you hired a full time comments moderator/publisher. We can’t wait for ever to see new batches of comments flowing in. The nation wants to know. Now.

Am I the only one struck by the coincidence of Lingeswaran and Lingesan hitting the screens one after the other? The last big-ticket movie with Lingam based names was Kadhala Kadhala which is 15 years old. And suddenly 2 in a month… Idhula yaravdhu aaraichi pannunga pa.

All our lives we have been told, true love is not about looks; you love a person and not his or her physical appearance. But how many of us have been put to test on this? Would your love be the same the same if your loved one’s face is scarred with an acid attack, or the body disfigured hideously with a debilitating disease? Not the kind of theme a faint-hearted film director would like to touch with a ten-foot boom mike.

But you can accuse Shankar of many things, but not of not thinking big, or out of the box. Like Dostoevsky in fiction an Einstein in science, Shankar believes you can only get to the core of truth only by pushing the envelope. What if a poor student decides to kill his landlady because he thinks she is not doing one ounce of use to the society and he could make better use of her money? What if I chase a beam of light as it travels through space?

So what happens if the man you love turns physically grotesque one day? Most of us would like to see the girl continuing to love him. But to live with him? Yes. But is it possible? How would it feel like? It is to Shankar’s credit that he SHOWS us and makes us believe.

And he is not like Raj Kapoor in Satyam Shivam Sundaram who shows only fleeting glimpses of Zeenat Aman’s face burnt on one side. He walks the talk. We see Vikram’s face with multiple bee-bite boils and the ugly lump on his hunchback in closer-ups as he talks and interacts with different characters in the film. And it is to the considerable credit of both Shankar and Vikram that this person with all his grotesqueness comes off so totally human. ( The other welcome departure from Raj Kapoor is in avoiding the pitfall of being obsessed with the heroine’s sexuality. Shankar shows off the erotic charms of Amy Jackson /Diya at the start, but slowly tones it down , making her grow as a character, drawing us into the narrative.)

Actually, Shankar has been pushing the envelope right from his first film, Gentleman. With every film we go looking for what he is going to come up with this time. And each time he comes up with a new idea. And new levels of excess. But after Robot , one thought how much farther can he go now? What more can he show us now? May be that is why he did the 3 Idiots remake after Robot. But then comes back and he pulls this out of his hat.

Of course we know better than to expect any kind of psychological subtlety or controlled narration from Shankar. It is all sledge hammer and more of everything, never knowing where to stop. But I wasn’t complaining – except for the fight scenes which are choreographed unimaginatively and go on and on. But not so the songs. Each of Shankar’s songs is a well-scripted music video with a complete story and a definite concept. The fish ending in Mersalaayiten is so damn cute. And Ennodu Nee Irundhal makes you wonder why can’t Shankar make a full-length fairy tale. And it was such a brilliant idea to use Aila Aila to string together a series of ads for different ads. I like the way Shankar thinks songs. Lip-synced songs are not real any way. So why use them if you are not able to give your imagination a free run and show something that you can’t as a normal narration. Thankfully we have Rahman’s powerful score to partner Shankar’s extravagant imagination.

I went for a 6 O’clock show instead of the usual late night one fearing its two-hour-plus length. But the minutes just passed by because Shankar tells an engaging tale. One trait Shankar shares with Raju Hirani apart from having a big idea at the core is peppering the narration with quirky observations from everyday life and using the with a dash of humour. Take the scene where Vikram / Lingasen goes to a old paper ( raddi) shop. He admires this model Diya ( Amy Jackson) no matter she is modelling for soap, face cream, or sanitary napkin. So he goes to this shop tears off all these pages featuring her ads…and hold your breath…places them on the scale to weigh! The other funny bit is how he demonstrates the humiliation that the villain Upen Patel feels on being worsted as a top model. Now he is down to endorsing third-grade products. And the last nail on his coffin is the ad he has to do for a local housing project, Arun Nagar, getting off his stud high-horse, putting white on his hair and putting on white dhoti and shirt, donning the role of a middle-class genial Tamilian uncle of sorts.

Shankar may not be subtle, but he is never off the mark when it comes to the core psychological truth. The obsessive love that the transgender stylist feels for Lee and the ensuing antics save the long Chinese portion from becoming a drag. The paedophilic obsession of the doctor uncle for Diya continuing through her adulthood is also shown convincingly, though wee bit more graphically that the more squeamish among us would like. The same goes for the gory revenge that Lingasen wrecks on each of the wrongdoers. Was it necessary to show all the physical degradation in that kind of graphic detail? In Shankar’s book of aesthetics, yes. He just does not believe in holding back anything. You want something to happen, and you want to see it happen …you better have the gumption to see it till the ned, and see what it is really like.

But if this penchant for excess was limited only to the violent and the gory. , his films won’t have been worth visiting. But he can visualize the limits of sweet love or extreme kindness, again in all its mundane detail and take you where no other director usually takes you. Just the scene in the coda after the end – no it’s not real, it cannot be – where the hunchbacked Lee and a devoted Diya are cutting vegetables, both beaming with inner glow of happiness, makes you believe in true love…and movie magic. And makes you forgive all of Shankar’s excesses.

Dint really get a few things. Was there any reason why the China stretch had to be in China? It could have been anywhere else in India? Why 5 villains? Why not 3/4/6? It was like Weta Workshop saying, “moonu prosthetics vaangina rendu free”

Disgusting beyond a point. So many kids in the movie hall, I pity them. I had sleepless nights as a kid after watching Manorama burn in Gentleman. Today, there was this kid sitting next to me, and his dad was like “kannaa, innum konja neram dhan, kanna moodikko”

And the characters were so sadistic. Vikarm goes “oororam puliyamaram” at the sight of make up artist. Make up artist makes sexual advances on a naive Lee and takes revenge for rejecting pure love. Santhanam makes mockery of the disfigured people.

Shankar is having such a bad taste or is he just clueless without Sujatha?

There is this ad shooting scene in which lingesan is out of lip sync and the director says “Paravlla, dubbing la paathukkalam”….as if to prepare us for the immediately next scene with Amy Jackson and her mom going totally out of sync with their lines. Amy was perfect with her delivery in the “madras tamil” scene (the diction, though dubbed, was better than that of Vikram’s, which sounded more wannabe madras tamil. Why cant she have better lip sync when has a conversation with her mother? It cannot be laziness……..what is it? why no one pays attention to it.

“A story this pulpy should have been way more exciting”

Pulpy? You mean how the whole “beauty” concept could have been explored? There were no signs of that in the script. was there anything sub textual that we are missing out here? Anbe Sivam explored love after disfigurement to some extent….and it was totally graceful, unlike I. Amy Jackson asks “enakku indha maari aayirndha, uttutu poirpiya” and Vikram nods to suggest “no”. The nod was not required.

Haven’t had time to get to the more recent comments, but here’s something that came by mail today.

This is the first time I am addressing you because your latest review given to movie I is not fair… You be review writer but everyone has their own view…Public Is not blind just seeing the review deciding about the movie ..So please stop writing like this ..For Example In Hindi You even given bad review for Salman movies Kick , Ek Tha Tiger , Jai Ho etc .You know the above mentioned movies are in Top 10 highest grossing movies of Hindi cinema…Mark my words the same will happen for Movie I ..Den public will come know about your writing about a movie…

Being Neutral fan to cinema , I itself feel to abuse in bad words …Be careful Vikram fans will tear you apart ..Just see as an actor how much effort and pain . He went throughout the movie .Encourage the actors to do more..Vikram s role model for all new comer actor coming to industry with their acting passion ..

How much amount you have got for writing a review like this to the star..Even Kamal haasan cant act this movie said by Shankar in many interview ..So do you understand what it means ..It means Vikram is ” ADHUKUM MELA ” He s greater than Kamal..

So stop writing reviews like this ,Don’t spoil any actor name like this ..Movies are made on their own views to entertain by publics not to criticise by reviewers ..Reviewers are not going to change a any fate of the movie …

@brangan: This is the first time I’m compelled to leave a comment on your blog after seeing an email like this.

The average Joe’s feeling is that I cut myself 10 times when making this dish, so don’t you dare speak bad about it.

If this guy is so confident that this movie will make it to the “Top 10” and that “Reviewers are not going to change a any fate of the movie” why bother emailing you? Hope you don’t become the next Perumal Murugan or RJ Balaji.

Neutral fan? He seems to speak like a theatre owner 😛

And please enable “threaded” comments, it is too difficult to follow discussions. Instructions available here.

Saw the movie today and found it quite entertaining. Obviously, what stood out for me was Vikram’s performance. There really is not much else to the movie if you leave him out.

But there’s one thing I found really jarring – and this seems to be true of a lot of Tamil films these days – the lip sync. For one, certain characters are actually speaking (or should I say mouthing) a different language (the heroine’s mother as a previous commenter pointed out). And secondly, in the case of those who do seem to speak Tamil, the words are literally out of place (Vikram and Santhanam’s characters are probably the only exceptions to this).

I just don’t get how this happens. In the first case, what is the filmmaker trying to do? Is he trying to make the job of dubbing the film in Hindi easier? That doesn’t seem to make much sense. The movie is primarily for a Tamil audience, and hence everything has to be in Tamil, right? And in the second case, why can’t they make sure that the lip movements actually match the words that are being said?

I find no excuse acceptable for this, because Tamil cinema has been importing actors for quite a while now and this problem has surfaced only quite recently. Jyothika and Simran’s dubbing in most of their films seems to have been pretty neatly done. Is this a testament to their lip syncing ability or are our filmmakers getting a bit lazy these days?

Kumar: is it possible that the audience of that show were extra nice just because Shankar’s family was there? Most people find it difficult to diss some filmmaker to his face or in his wife’s presence.

You say it is like taking your spouse to an appraisal meeting. You might notice that in most teams that aren’t too closely knit, people say only politically correct things to a colleague’s spouse.

BR: Generic request to all film critics. Everyone is a human and may have his or her limitations in likes and dislikes. A critic can not be a critic for all genres of films. Why don’t you segregate your interest and go for it and review it ? Do you have the freedom to tell the editor – Sir this in not my cup of tea and excuse me. Rather than writing on the film .. most of the thread is on the lead actors. For eg. Most of the comments on Rajinikanth in your the most popular recent blog was quite objectionable.

@brangan: it’s nice no, he says you don’t matter and therefore is worked up enough to send you a email, thereby proving… you don’t matter? hm… probably just trying to say film critics don’t affect the box office performance of a film, naturally because you can’t buy up all the tickets of a movie you didn’t like to save people from watching it.

P.S: If you did receive money to write such a review “to the star”, I request on behalf of other readers of the blog that you distribute it among us fairly and equally.

Buried underneath this messy movie are the kernels of some ideas that could have made a pretty good tragic or semi-tragic, fairy-tale-like film about the commercial and modeling industries, where people can be ruthless to each other, where looks are number one, what happens when those go away, and the idea of true love transcending looks. With more economical storytelling and some well-deployed melodrama, this could have been a pretty good movie. Towards the end it gets so bogged down in plot mechanics that it

This film is overlong and underdeveloped. In that first fight scene with the body builders, for example, it’s Lingesa against everyone else there. I didn’t see any indication that Lingesa was particularly hated by the other bodybuilders, except for Ravi, nor was there any indication that they were all on Ravi’s side. It was a thin excuse for a big fight scene.

The China scenes dragged on and on, and Diya falling for Lee was unconvincing.

Much has already been said about the treatment of Osma. I don’t demand that minorities and people discriminated against always must be depicted in films as upstanding citizens, but when there are so few transexuals in films, every depiction of them has weight. She’s only shown as a desperate letch who turns vengeful when scorned. And her attitude towards Lee is basically how heroes usually act towards the women, yet she is vilified in a way that heroes are not.

Amy Jackson was actually pretty good. Although a white woman being cast as an Indian is hugely problematic unless she’s playing an Anglo-Indian (there was NOBODY in all of India who could have played this role?), on a performance level I’d say she was better than most of the “alabaster automatons” in Tamil films. At least she had more to do than most Shankar heroines, or Tamil heroines in general. She had career ambitions and she displayed a dark side when she toyed with Lee’s emotions.

Random notes:

Do commercial directors yell “chemistry!” at their actors to get them to act?

Would a model for a soda company be interviewed the way he was in this film, even if he was Mr. Tamil Nadu? Come to think of it, is any part of how the advertising world was depicted accurate?

The CEO character looks like he was imitating Bappi Lahiri.

I suspect that none of what Lee did to Osma’s skin creams would cause her to grow hair all over her body.

What influenza virus causes hair and teeth to fall out, and pustules to form on one’s body?

Was “Ladio” directed by a commercial director? It was unusually slick and well-done.

BR: I am seeing a lot of votes for the threaded comments option. But Threaded comments make it difficult to read the comments in mobile so please try to read other blogs that use this and then decide if this will be really good for your blog. I personally like it the way it is.

(Re-comment by Ravi K.) “And her attitude towards Lee is basically how heroes usually act towards the women, yet she is vilified in a way that heroes are not.”

Disagree. She (Osma) was nasty. Wanted to damage him physically … severely (not just with the thrust of a pearl necklace a la Devdas). Don’t know that too many heroes act this way. The villains in I were the embodiment of some of the deadly sins – lechery, avarice, cupidity, envy … Osma was a villainous transgender – I don’t see anything politically incorrect about this portrayal. In fact I seem to remember Premnath and Shakti Kapoor essaying similar roles in masalas gone by. (maybe not transgender but definitely gay).

If reviewers are not going to change the fate of the movie, then why do they take offence at your criticism?

The whole concept of the movie was ridiculous – that all it takes to sell a product is attractive models and chemistry. For the record, whatever the Khans or Akshay does in an ad will never convince me that another drink is better than Bovonto

1) Yes. Everyone is a human and have their limitations. But these usually are limitations related to what they create rather than what they consume. I may not be able to paint like Leonardo or compose like ARR. But I can still see and I can still hear. Yes, I do not see the detail some people see and hear as much details some people hear. So what? Art should give a certain pleasure to those who seek it. “I” wasn’t meant for just Shankar’s wife’s viewing. It was meant for you and me. We may have differing opinions and tastes. That is to be expected. Right?

2) I assume a Shankar fan or a Vikram fan has even more right to expect terrific output from their idols than a cool non-fan does? The ones who expected this movie with excitement are going to be harsher in their criticism. Right? Is it wrong to expect more from the maker of Mudhalvan?

3) Those who are criticising the movie here are not some people who eat only continental food and complain that the biryani is too spicy. They are people who have thalapakatti biryani and ambur biryani week after week and who know what is too spicy and what is just right.

4) “A critic can not be a critic for all genres of films”. Why not? Variety is the spice of life. Only someone who has seen the most romantic of romance movies and the most horrific of horror movies knows what the human mind is capable of imagining. And that is the type of person who can write a review that is worthy of respect.

5) Linga’s thread had discussions about Rajini, I’s thread discussions about Shankar and Aambala’s thread had discussions about Hansika. This is to be expected. Why is this a problem?

6) We, as a culture, seem to have a habit of making deities out of entertainers. Somebody dances and acts well, tells a story well and then suddenly saying a smallest criticism becomes blasphemy against the invincible God. Well Ok. At least, If they need to have that kind of adulation, let them earn that adulation with every movie they make. That will give us good cinema. Adoring someone just because his previous efforts used to be great just sounds lame.

Baddy. Going non linear with the narrative is a very pragmatic call. A linear narrative would have resulted in having the deformed Lingesan fill up the screen for the entire second part of the film. The non linear structure allows the filmmaker to keep the normal looking character appear throughout the movie so that the deformed character doesn’t become the only image in your mind that you walk out with. This is an old trick.

@Raghul – You want brangan to not write reviews for star vehicles because it might engender comments making fun of/criticizing said star? I have a strong feeling that Rajini piece and comments were mostly unpopulated by “fans” because the initial comments were all tonally the same and then was taken up by a vocally strong crowd making the same arguments. I bet a whole bunch of “fans” were seething seeing their “god” denigrated (yes “denigrated”). It still hurts, eh Raghul? Maybe we should wipe off all places in the internet (and the world) where we people dare criticise Rajinikanth?

If you were posting a troll comment, I apologise. Carry on your good work 🙂

The “Power Star” Srinivasan bits were not at all funny. Maybe “Power Star” jokes were en vogue when the film was shot, but now they are stale and hackneyed. I’m not a huge fan of the comedy in Shankar’s films (except for incidentally humorous bits), but this was a new low.

Dr Satendra Singh: My apologies. What is the politically correct term for ‘hunchback’, though?

Vis: The BGM was neither good enough to make me sit up and pay special attention to it, nor was it terrible enough to make me wince. It was generic, I suppose.

Akhilan: I guess the film had an expensive look about it. It certainly didn’t look “cheap.”

lydia: I don’t agree that masala films have to be tacky and/or tasteless.

Gradwolf: But is it really a love story? To function as a love story, a film — at the very least — should have a credible and affecting romantic track.

Consider how Amy falls for Vikram. The trajectory is (1) I really don’t give a shit about you except that you come in useful in my career (2) I’m pretending to love you because I want to save my career (3) Now that the ad’s done, I’m dumping you (4) Oh, but wait, this transgender seems to be in love with you… hmmm… (5) Okay, I guess I am in love with you after all.

This just doesn’t work at all.

And if you love someone, do you put her in chains? Agreed, there’s a fable-like aspect here, but there’s the feeling that just about everything is done for effect rather than to reflect what these characters would actually do.

It’s okay to be larger than life. That’s why we go to these films. But even in that zone, we ask for a bit of plausibility — not “reality,” but plausibility.

I watched my first Tamil film in 1978 when I was sent by BHEL for a couple of month’s training at the company’s Trichy unit. It was MGR’s Urmai Kural. But soon I got to see films of K Balachandar, Bharatiraja and Balu Mahendra and was exposed to a cinematic aesthetics which was totally different from that of Bollywood ( though the word had not been coined then). But more than any other, the two names that kept my passion for Tamil films incandescent hot were Kamal Hasan and Ilyaraja.

The fire was rekindled in the 90s with the Tweedledum and Twedledee of Tamil cinema for me – Mani Ratnam and Shankar. Their films could not be more different, and they kind of complemented each other. But there were some commonalities if not similarities. For one, the later Ratnam and Shankar, both had Rahman creating his most creative, most accomplished work for them. Then there was the visual cinematic language both of them used for telling their stories which could engage non-Tamilians like me effortlessly. But their differences were stark too. In a sense , they were like The Beatles and the Rolling Stones in in the 60s, the good boy and not-so-good boy of Tamil cinema, both of them equally brilliant.

Those who follow my posts may have noticed my falling out of love with Ratnam of late, but my passionate engagement with Shankar continues. Einstein once said, “”Dostoevsky gives me more than any scientist, more than Gauss.” I would like to paraphrase that and say, “ Shankar gives me more than any arty director, more than Gurudutt.’

In Satyam’s piece I found some pretty accurate summation of what Shankar is about. And it has stirred to me to articulate some of my own thoughts about Shankar. Firstly, he is very childlike, inventive and playful…qualities that I think are a must for any artiste I admire…from The Beatles and Picasso to Hussain and Rahman. Secondly, he is very contemporary. He engages with issues of the day, he is in touch with trends of the day, his heart beats to the beats of the youth. He is in tune with technology more than any other Indian filmmaker I can think of. That’s how he thinks up of all those songs where a cellphone turns into a woman, that’s how he can breathe so much life into a story like Robot. He is also a totally non-intellectual, and completely visceral filmmaker. It’s all physical. It’s all action. But that does not mean he is not intelligent. It is the intelligence of a Sachin Tendulkar, it’s the intelligence of a David Beckham. The intelligence is about hand-eye coordination, it is about buses piling on buses, it is about a face disappearing during a dance and it is about centipede robot fighting a hydra-headed robot. The most endearing part of Shankar is his rootedness that backgrounds his modernity. Be it the folk eroticism of Uslam Bati in Gentleman or the sequence with mud house in Indian or his evocation of different kinds of hell in Aaniyan, his work is informed at all times by an intuitive knowledge of Indian folk and mythical traditions. Shankar’s art is low art. It is crude. It is coarse. It is often politically incorrect. But what makes a Shankar film come alive and makes it live in our memory is the soul, the iridescent core that shines through all the grossness, all the political incorrectness and all the superficial gloss.

I would say Endhiran is his most accomplished, the most wholesome and the most satisfying film in his oeuvre. But there is so much to take from films like I, Anniyan, Mudalvan and Indian as well. It’s an impressive filmography and he is still in his 40s. Can he grow from here and create something more substantial.? Not likely. But if he gets lucky to stumble upon another writer like Sujatha and if he learns to keep his excesses in check, just a wee bit, he might just be able to do it one day.

–> Coming from Shankar, the king of tasteful romances, nothing should surprise you anymore.

“Consider how Sada falls for Vikram. The trajectory is (1) Sada is a chamathu brahmin girl who sings well and teaches children how to sing. So, “naturally” the Ambi + Amaanji that Vikram is, he falls in love (2) Sada calls Ambi a “logarithm. clark’s table. nasa (Not the space station but a derogatory thamizh word!)” (3) Sada falls in love with Remo who, I suppose, is “cool” (4) Sada realizes, after listening to Ambi’s story that “Manasuku make-up poda mudiyaadhu.” (5) Totally keeping with the mood of the romance/setting, they dance to “Adangaaka Kondakaari” (6) Subam

Finally got to watch it here…with all of 6 people in the theater on a weekday evening show.I was surprised that the film didn’t actually feel like a drag, possibly because I went in with low expectations. It just didn’t feel like 3 hours long at least until the latter parts of the movie. Besides everything that has been discussed threadbare, some of the things that didn’t work for me were:

The editor could have made the film taut. For example, after Vikram rebuffs Osma’s advances, the shot shows Amy quickly walking into her nearby room and Vikram walking out of Osma’s room in a huff. After that, there is a 30 second sideways shot (or more) of Osma’s face in closeup crying, framed in the side with candles. That scene could be cut completely with no detriment to the film. We already know that Osma is disappointed by Vikram’s refusal.

The prosthetics in the second half for the villains was comical…maybe the intent was to make them cartoonish, but it seemed like prosthetics overload!

I felt there wasn’t a need to show Suresh Gopi stuffing undergarments into his pants on his way out. We already know the he has been obsessed with her for a long time, but that act, especially being shown when she is a school girl, brought out pedophile tendencies in the character…which was unnecessary. Also, Pedophiles are not necessarily interested in marrying and settling down. There is a difference between being obsessed and being a criminal.

i strongly felt that Vikram just couldn’t carry off the Madras lingo and character. Maybe it was his body language but the lingo just didn’t feel natural. Again, at the risk of comparison with Kamal’s body of work (which is not my intent here), contrast this performance with say a Pammal K Sambhandam….Kamal nails it even if it is slightly over the top.

venky: About the decibel level thing and “how Indian women mourn their relatives’ death”, there are two different things here. (1) Culture and (2) Cinema. As Kamal proved in “Virumaandi,” it’s possible to showcase an oppaari (as local as it gets) and make a world-class film, which will be “got” globally as “cinema.”

So the two aren’t mutually interdependent. I’m sorry I keep coming back to Kamal and Mani Ratnam, but take “Agni.” A superb masala movie. And yet, every choice (and not just the cinematography) is “aesthetic” in a way that’s not just local. There are high-decibel scenes. There are low-decibel scenes. The character arcs are clean/defined. What happens at one point of the story has a resonance later on. The romances are reasonably well-written. [ Forget the dreadful comedy for an instant 😀 ]

But even with high-decibel works with little aspiration to being “art”, there’s something like “Dhool” or “Saamy” that works very well. Again, good character arcs. No random gimmickry. Reasonably well-integrated comedy etc.

So you CAN do good stuff — as Shankar himself has demonstrated in films like “Mudhalvan” — in the high-decibel mode.

But where Shankar’s films seem somewhat unhinged to me post-“Anniyan” is in the fact that the mix doesn’t feel right. Take the comedy for instance. It’s one of Shankar’s standard tropes (if you want to call it that) to have the hero’s friend/right-hand-man as the comedian. So Goundamani was helping Arjun in the latter’s second avatar but was cracking A-rated jokes with the first avatar. So too Goundamani in “Indian,” Manivannan in “Mudhalvan” and so on.

But in “Mudhalvan” — which is a serious film — this is not silly comedy. Manivannan’s lines are shaped to evoke smiles, yes, but they are also zingers that reflect the political nature of the film. Which is why it works and we don’t wince or look at it as a separate “comedy track.”

But Santhanam — who performs the “helps second avatar, cracks jokes with first avatar” duties here — doesn’t come off as “organic” a character as Manivannan in “Mudhalvan”. This is the point I’m making. I’m not comparing Shankar to Mani Ratnam or Kamal and saying he should be subtle. I’m just comparing Shankar to Shankar himself and saying that even this unsubtle stuff used to be done in a clever, organic manner earlier, and now it’s just all over the place.

Plus, Shankar’s films have gotten increasingly gruesome, and the comedy doesn’t fit in at all. When the villains are lying in bed, after being “punished”, and when Santhanam goes and makes jokes, he reduces them to comic punching bags. Given the gargantuan mythic beauty-and-the-beast effect this film strives for, these villains should be – well — scary, like ogres from a fairy tale. Here they are reduced to ogres “visually” but then Santhanam comes and pricks that bubble by making easy jokes.

I have a feeling Shankar’s doing this in order to retain his family audiences — otherwise, without Santhanam, these bits may come off as really scary. But by doing so, he’s harming his premises immeasurably.

Well, there was a lot of stuff that was sort of half-assedly put out there. The mirrors. The emphasis on looks in the ad industry. The fact that both avatars of Vikram have to do with looks — one whose muscles are all buffed up and presented to the world, the other who’s resented because of his looks.

But like you rightly say, “Anbe Sivam” did all this with far more grace.

Srikanth: My other worry with the dubbing-itis that’s infected us is that the masala genre is an especially rooted and “local” genre – and these alienating women really create a distance between what we know as Tamil and what we see on screen.

Siva: Going non linear with the narrative is a very pragmatic call.

Agreed. My point was more about how this decision did away with the surprise element. In “Anniyan”, for instance, we get this red herring moment where Ambi types out an email to Anniyan — and at least for a while we think they are two different people. Here, the minute we see Santhanam helping the second character, we know they are the same. Plus, key events were telegraphed way too early and the film had literally no suspense.

Ram Murali: Oh, I agree with your example, which is why I don’t get why this is being seen as a major leap for Shankar in terms of the love angle. I mean, it’s pretty much what he’s done earlier.

Ravi K: Oh this has been in vogue for a while now. In “Guru,” for instance, they used invisible CGI to create Bombay in Puducherry. I think there’s an old Rajiv Menon interview of mine that talks about this.

Utkal Mohanty: The most endearing part of Shankar is his rootedness that backgrounds his modernity. Be it the folk eroticism of Uslam Bati in Gentleman or the sequence with mud house in Indian or his evocation of different kinds of hell in Aaniyan, his work is informed at all times by an intuitive knowledge of Indian folk and mythical traditions.

Shankar can hardly own this, Utkal. He may be the most visible practitioner of these traditions, but they are very much a big part of the masala movie ethos in Tamil/Telugu.

Satyam: As always, great to see your reading of a commercial movie. I especially agree with your comment: ‘I’ might occasion a certain kind of reading without necessarily being highly accomplished in any sense.

I agree, too, that “The transgender track is simply meant for titillation.” Shankar, to me, is the kind of filmmaker who wants each scene to be the equivalent of a punch line. If it takes a transgender, so be it. If takes a few little people in the “vaaji vaaji” song, so be it. And this extends to the rest of the film. He wants every scene to have a PUNCH, even if this punch makes little sense in the overall scheme of things. So things like narrative/character consistency etc. are NOT a priority for him — which is why I doubt he thinks too much about metaphorical stuff, which require far more commitment to the characters and narrative.

Of course, as you say, this isn’t to discount one’s reading of Shankar’s films (which are a function of trusting the tale, not the teller) — just talking about Shankar himself.

Also wanted to add that Shankar’s entire oeuvre — with its constant sets of twins — seems, to me, an “id” version of the most iconic line from “Nayakan” — “neenga nallavara kettavara!” One man, two faces.

“In “Anniyan”, for instance, we get this red herring moment where Ambi types out an email to Anniyan — and at least for a while we think they are two different people. Here, the minute we see Santhanam helping the second character, we know they are the same. ”

@BR: I don’t think they intended a surprise/suspense factor on whether the second character and Lee are the same. Here it is more about how Lee became like that and the people responsible for that. There were no surprises there either, just saying 🙂

Brangan wrote: “But where Shankar’s films seem somewhat unhinged to me post-“Anniyan” is in the fact that the mix doesn’t feel right. Take the comedy for instance. It’s one of Shankar’s standard tropes (if you want to call it that) to have the hero’s friend/right-hand-man as the comedian. So Goundamani was helping Arjun in the latter’s second avatar but was cracking A-rated jokes with the first avatar. So too Goundamani in “Indian,” Manivannan in “Mudhalvan” and so on.”

I wouldn’t consider Manivannan as the main comedian in Mudhalvan. It had Vadivelu as the comedian, with that dumb “poda panni” bit. Manivannan is often a “swing player” who is more integrated into the story, but often has his one-liners.

“Also wanted to add that Shankar’s entire oeuvre — with its constant sets of twins — seems, to me, an “id” version of the most iconic line from “Nayakan” — “neenga nallavara kettavara!” One man, two faces.”

This is a crucial point Baradwaj. Almost all of Shankar’s important films might be read as an economy of twins and quite often involving the self and its estranged other. But in some ways it’s also about trios involving father figures, literal or symbolic ones. Chitti is both good and bad, ‘twinned’ in this sense and then of course there’s his scientist-father. Indian has a central twin structure but then there is also the pre-history of the father figure. Anniyan admittedly has the three with the absent father (one wonders why!) but ‘I’ (spoilers) has two Vikram characters (the uncouth body-builder and his deracinated model-double) but then the wizened, monstrous, ancient figure who can only exist as nightmare in the city’s underbelly. Perhaps Gentleman is the only pure double in his work (where such a structure holds) along with something more recent like Sivaji [not that I would talk about this film in any serious sense except to say, and extending your suggestion, that it is twinned with Enthiran.. both ‘biopic’ chapters as it were in a Rajni history.. one about the disabling of the great star at that late point in his history (that ‘shocking’ scene where Rajni cannot really free himself on the tracks or that action one where he’s literally running away from the goons) and the other about robotics recreating the peak-period star]. I love all of this though.. one might say in philosophical mode, and perhaps pretentiously, that where there are two there are usually three in Shankar’s work! In any case a wonderful comment Baradwaj and certainly it can be very usefully grafted on to the other robot/beast, old India/new India twinning I’ve set up.

I know this is late, but I just saw the film. While I agree with the main points already mentioned (Shankar’s formula, but still entertaining enough, though is a letdown going by the giant expectations from the trailers, oh well I still had fun nonetheless). However, one large problem I face during the movie was the consecutive villain introductions with bland motives, I mean it didn’t seem like any of the villains, except for the main one who was shown as some psycho, had any real reason to hate him that much. It could have been anyone that beat the other body builder , or took away someone’s modeling career (there was nothing “personal” about these animosities). Even the businessman thing was so contrived, like your stocks going down is hardly reason for that kind of revenge (usually the upright hero exposes and ruins or sends the businessman to jail, or something, that warrants this kind of revenge). And didn’t it seem all to convenient how they all gang up against him at the same time. I kind of wished there was one real villain with a real motive, instead of so many. However, by the end (during the hospital scenes), I was having fun again because of all the villains (I love the way he takes them down and targets). Did anyone else feel this was a problem in the narrative, or was it just me being to nitpicky?

ok, this is really late, but I had a few things to ask…and, also, say….or nitpick 😛

what happened to that dog?? except for two scenes, it was never there in the movie…they couldve atleast shown that dog in the end, you know, running around in the wherever ‘they are living happily ever’ after zone. No character development for the dog; unlike the dog in ‘anbe sivam’ who had a meatier role than the heroine in that movie 😛 😛

will a hi profile doc ever go to such a local gym when there are talkwalkers and gold’s in every nook and corner ???

is there a dearth of male models in the industry (just like the scarcity of heroines to play amy’s role) ?? Even if you are blacklisted, you could still get a better male amateur model and get him trained rt? no makeover, no crazy make up artists…and then, no fake love drama too…ok, I dont know where I am getting with this, but for gods sake, what did she see in him to replace a top model !!

It wouldve been great to see the ‘ennodu nee irundaal’ song picturised on the koonan….no, not him lip syncing…but in the background in a really touching way….atleast thats the image I had in my head until recently when the hindi trailers came out….

And lastly, I so wanted both lee and diya to die in the movie…as cliched as it sounds, but I feel there would be dat ‘lump in the throat’ moment when he dies while murdering one of his villains (after one of them had killed her, ofcourse) with that line ‘nee illaa ulagathil, naan vaazha maateney’ playing in the background…..oh pls, this is a masala movie, if we can watch the same fight sequences with ‘white veshti’ people swaying ‘sickles’ in the air, this wouldnt be an eye sore at all….its better than seeing him get cured !!! oh wait, atleast if he died alone, it wouldve been better to see an ending with just her walking across that huge garden, with the reprise version of the song playing in the background….not like how it is in ‘Highway’, but ‘adukkum mele’ 😛 😛

Ragini:
Well said : Shankar is not making movies for his wife. In the same tone I say the critics are not writing their reviews for their wives to read. There seems always a sense of differential take on some actors’ movies. Yes I go to cinema hall for a movie or watch it in TV which I like to see. It’s my prerogative and no complaints. But a reader has to read a review in a newspaper though I do not buy the newspaper just for the review also. Here I feel the review is inadvertently thrust on me so It’s my genuine wish that review should be genuine. Please mind this: It is my generic comment and not wrt to any particular actor or film.

If someone says “Kattipudi Kattipudida” is a good song and you do not agree plz. excuse me you are not the target group for that song…give way…

I can cite many critics’ flawed reviews: When ARR joined Bharathiraja (Kizhakkuseemayile, I think), it was written in a popular weekly their combination was total mismatch and they used some funny lines to describe that. I am sure you are aware that those songs fetched several awards (is it a yardstick, you may ask) and even today are considered cult classic.
This week a movie got 4.5/5.0 rating from one reviewer and 1.5/5.0 from another reviewer.

Raghul: Can you please explain how do you decide if a review is genuine or not? Or do you impose your own preferences and tastes on the reviewer’s and expect, unreasonably, for them to conform to your own? I am not picking up cudgels for Baradwaj Rangan here and I have disagreed with him earlier on many occasions. But I too review music for a website off and on. Unlike him, I am not a professional reviewer and don’t get paid for it. My reviews strictly reflect my own opinion of the album. That’s it, ambudhen. If people read zillions of agendas into it, they may, it’s a free world, but I frankly couldn’t care less. But I honestly cannot imagine what would be the opinion of the public-at-large about an album before writing about it. And the public-at-large is not one homogeneous entity anymore in India, there are diverse subgroups within. I think those who read my reviews would want to know what I really thought about it and are capable of thereafter making up their own minds irrespective of whether they agree or disagree with me. I find the very thought that this may not be the case rather bewildering.

Raghul: I believe “Kattipudida” and similar songs are thrust upon people who don’t like them in the name of FM Radio, Share Autos, Light music, Music competitions etc. I personally like such songs, but I kind of recognise that they must be a pain in the ass to those who don’t. You escape one song and the next month a new beast is unleashed and so forth. You have just “Give way…” to say to the poor tortured souls but you feel movie reviews are “inadvertently thrust upon you”?

Saw it 3rd week of release in the Bay Area and I waited because the film was listed as a premium release so ticket prices for the first 2 weeks did not offer any discount! Love the movie and this movie will be even better to watch at home when we can skip through the useless filler scenes. 3+ hrs is too long though and I snuck in a fruit salad. Has Shankar reached a point where he forgets less is more?

This movie felt like a lot of different technically strong episodes stitched together. Begin with Chennai bodybuilding scene, add fight sequence. Next oru caamedy. Ippo model love story. China shift panni love saang . Boss how about a Chinese fight but we do it with bikes? Nextu revenge. Periya villain reveal. One last revenge. Roll credits. Insert "aal is vell" highnote. Mad props to Shankar for idea to make people stay during credits with the extra scenes and horizontal scroll of credits below!
Vikram worked hard of course but it was not needed really to do all that sacrifice. He has reached a point where he could cash in but he still pushes the envelope - very open to doing physical scenes with Osma, dancing bindaas in a woman's nightgown. And these actions are doing with good intention , not for cheap laughs like other Tamil heroes would do. The heroine looks so desi and really any actress could have done the job.

Comedy was the worst part especially the “terra star” parts which were inserted for no reason. Also why the Tamil slang in China scene? What is the point in showing Diya falling for Lee by pretending to speak local? And the worst was the press interview of the victims – aiyyo what a distasteful mess! Unintentionally amusing was the Diya in fairness cream ad, lol.

Some plot holes also are obvious. If one virus infection can be treated and healed then why not the other one too. It takes a billionaire to get the virus sample from foreign, then how did a deformed beggar get access to/create yet another deadly sample? And that actor totally looked like some one called central casting and asked for a Mallya dupe.

So Nirosha just driving by Karthik and singing “I…love…you” was a well written romance for you? Even for someone so used to love-at-first-glance scenes in Tamil that was ridiculous.Mani was still a bit immature around Agni’s time

“I wouldn’t consider Manivannan as the main comedian in Mudhalvan. It had Vadivelu as the comedian, with that dumb “poda panni” bit. Manivannan is often a “swing player” who is more integrated into the story, but often has his one-liners.”

If you consider screen time Manivannan was functionally the main comedian even if he did happen to be in some serious scenes. Also he had some of the movie’s best lines.His casting was a masterstroke.

vijay: Actually, I think this is a terrific romantic track, given the generally “light” tone of the film — in the sense that it’s not an “important” movie, saying “important” things — and I don’t look at it as “love at first sight at all.

This how I see the Karthik-Nirosha track:

She’s a deeply disturbed girl, given the mess around her parent’s personal lives — and this is why she and Karthik form such a bond eventually. Because his parents’ personal lives are equally effed up.

Her saying “I love you” in the car is not when love happens. This is just fun-n-games. She’s this pampered, privileged kid looking for something to alleviate her boredom. She sees this guy when she stops at a light. She kind of looks at him (and we get Raja’s ultra-gorgeous synth/guitar BGM here 😀 ) She sees him looking back. The signal changes. She decides to have some fun. She says ILU and speeds off.

And this becomes a thing. He barges into her house when she’s swimming. She barges into his house and announces she’s pregnant.

So far, it’s just fun-n-games (and maybe a bit of this-chick-is-seriously-hot-man from his side).

It’s only at the cafe that the relationship turns. The scene starts with more fun-n-games. Then Karthik realises he’s crossed a line, that the thing he’s making fun of has actually hit home, and that her life is as messed up as his.

That’s when the “love” begins.

And it’s affirmed when she comes to him just before “Vaa vaa anbe anbe” and asks “En en kitta sollale…?”

In other words, not a love-at-first-sight thing at all. And this is a model example of how a love track should be written — when people TAKE TIME to get to know each other, and ONLY THEN fall in love.

The “Vaa vaa anbe” song placement is perfect because it’s an intense love song and by the time it comes on, their relationship is similarly at an intense level.

You don’t find love-at-first-sight in Mani Ratnam’s early films at all. Even in something as terrible as “Idhayakoil”. Even in something as light-hearted as “Idhayathai Thirudathey.”

The first time we see love-at-first-sight in his films is in “Bombay” (correct me if I’m wrong), and THAT is where I have a serious problem.

The “Uyire” song placement has always bothered me because it’s TOO INTENSE a track for the relationship that’s been portrayed at that point.

I get why Mani Ratnam did this. He had to quickly move on and get to the Bombay portions of the story. But the intensity depicted in the song — with those lashing waves and all — just doesn’t match the intensity of the couple’s relationship IMO.

BR, while I agree that the relationship eventually turns more serious and the song placement wasn’t out of place, the origin of all this was still a bit too random , picking a guy off the street just like that. Prabhu and Amala’s track, equally light, at least had a lead-up to their first meeting. Karthik’s track isn’t all that different from the usual 80s films, where the hero starts off by stalking a good looking girl on the road and then it eventually becomes dheeiveega kaadhal, even if the twist here is that its the girl who initiates it.

I don’t this track is about love at first sight, and I don’t think it’s about stalking either. Stalking is when someone forces himself/herself on someone else. Here, I don’t get the feeling that either of them resented the fun-n-games that were happening. Her actions led to his, and when he did something, she retaliated.

1) Just look at the regressive/Sadist themes handled in this movie ….transgender sequence, People disfigurement, VIolence of hunchback being beaten up, Pedhophile tendencies, Santhanam making fun of people at the end, Amy not getting marriage proposals due to lee… and over and above it’s so difficult to watch Vikram in 2nd half for extended time in closeup’s ….

And this has been certified as “UA” ….pity for the kids who would happen to go with parents for this!!

It just can’t get worse than this…. and there is nothing called humour in this film.

Again want to bring a point, do you think this regressive mindset is becoming something unique to Tamil cinema offlate!

Pl let me know your comments

Again am not taking sides, but not sure in bollywood if a mainstream director/actor can produce this kind of movie?

2) On Low decibel cinemas!!

Sometime back, you had written about “Baishe Srabon” review and based on which in fact I had seen it. I really like the movie and key points you made about this movie like hero Prosenjit Chatterjee playing his age, dialogues, and also the way the movie is based on themes like poems.It’s an classic example of a commercial movie with little melodrama and heroism

I think we’ve to learn a lot from Bengali cinema (and to some extent from Malayalam cinema) to be specific from the Master film maker Ray.The ability to convey emotions through character’s we can feel for without Melodrama and manipulation (Charulatha ,Apu Trology , Calcutta Trilogy, Days and night in the forest…etc). A seminar on his films to our directors should help! Ofcourse there are lof of other talented directors but Ray come to my mind first.

W@atching “I” in an almost empty cinema hall is simply more fun, there are no hoots or whistles, there is nothing that comes between you and the screen. It also gives you pause, and pause is what one requires before one reviews a Shankar movie.

It is a time to pause and wonder if down the line when only the classics are the ones cared for and carried forward, would any of Shankar”s efforts cross the line? Or would he become irrelevant like those numerous bestsellers of numerous eras that cease to be relevant once their era’s are over?

I hear someone say that only “Indian” might make it, and in retrospect one understands the beneficial impact that Kamal for all his supposed meddling might have made on that script.
“Gentleman” might make it, based if but on its pacing. I doubt if Anniyan would, or any of the others. “I” certainly wouldn’t.

If audience engagement were the true measure by which movies were rated, then “I” would not make it. There are flashes of brilliance, there are attempts at character development, and if for once Shankar had foregone his usual “awe-inspiring” attempts, there was a chance at a real story.

If he had foregone those two fight sequences, the one in the gym, and the other on the rooftop, then he could have had us invested in the characters, but then it would not be a Shankar movie, would it be? How sad!

Amy, mmmm first, and umm next, as a model she is eye candy, but she (recent boob job?) still retains an Aishwarya like plasticity and reserve that doesn’t work out well on screen.

No wonder then that a Nayantara, or a Nazriya or even a Lakshmi Menon, to think of three models of ordinariness, can manage to make us feel that they are beautiful, they can make us want them. Shankar, of all people should know this, when the heroine sizzles, then little more is really required on the directors part, even storylines and scripts can take some rest.

Surprisingly this is where he has failed us in his recent outings. Aishwarya in Robot, another robot among the many, Ileana in Friends, and now Amy, all plasticky, when they could have been more. Like Aish, Amy lacks the magic, for the screen, a magic that someone like Sonam or Parineeti seem to create, with little effort, or Ileana with some.

Just to compare, think of our hyper hystrionics, the Jothikas, the Khusboos, and the others, and look back at how their mere presence could lift a movie up. Someone needs to break Amy down, and who will?

Vikram, I feel so sorry for him. All those diets seem to have diluted the magic he created on screen in his second outing.

He, who with a mere crease around his eyes, and a dimple in his cheek, could communicate and conjure feelings, looks like someone who has just recovered from a major famine. For a man who is Tamil’s possibly most manly looking actor, this is a major comedown.

His sunken eyes, his aging face they all detract from the desirable character he is supposed to play, and if the scenes in China, in the midst of all that beauty, look kind of plasticky, it owes much to his looking awful. They should have gone with someone younger….

As the hunchback, and as the model, Vikram’s acting is quite ordinary, if you can forget the effort, and the makeup. It is Tamil cinema’s disgrace that when actors begin to ham, their acting begins to be praised. Think Vikram in Pithamagan, a silly outing for a man so talented, and a national award to add to the disgrace.

The transgender, I wonder why there was a hullabaloo, if one at all. Shankar has tried his best to showcase the character, or his/her feelings in a considerate light.

As to the enhanced sexuality of the character, it is our society’s fault that the gender, and in public generally tends to act that way. When one judges a person based on his sexuality, then one is bound to take the backlash. Transgenders should feel less offended actually, when compared to their characterization in any other movie. Paruthi Veeran for instance, I would have been glad had they complained then.

The villainy did not need to seem forced, but then, one tends to forget that Shankar is actually a seventies product, so the ideas of villainy are from that time frame. One can work back to any old Rajini vengeance movie, and find that nothing has changed. Interestingly if there is a directorial space in the whole movie where there is economy and tight editing, it is mostly with the villains.

Santhanam, poor guy, nothing to do, and whatever he has to do, or did do, comes undone in the last part where he takes on the part of the sutradhar detailing each villains comeuppance. So much for comedy, but Shankar’s sense of comedy was always oblique or crass, his first outing Gentleman having set a new low. Did someone say “Boys” ?

The best work in the movie, as universally acknowledged, is by PC Sriram, but then the very beauty of the scenery actually makes us question his share of the work. Did he just need to pan and shoot what Shankar had, with his unlimited budgets and mega paint jobs, materialize into existence? Does not KV do better?

Rahman, well, the more we demand, the more he manages to fail, like those one dayers, where the much vaunted batting line up fails and it is usually the last man standing who manages the winning run.

There is just one song, “Pookkale” which is hummable, the others do not go above his post “Indian” trademark ordinariness. One feels nostalgic for at least an Enakku…. something like effort. If all the praise does not improve him, I guess it is time for some censure.

So was there a takeaway from “I”, other than the grandeur?

Idiot, I hear someone say, the grandeur is the takeaway.

Why does this remind me of Brando’s line…. I coulda been a contender. Of the many gifted directors we have and have had, it is to Shankar that this could apply most.

Hey, even Priyadarshan despite his numerous post Malayalam sins has managed a national award winning effort. How nice would it be to have Shankar’s name there!

“In other words, not a love-at-first-sight thing at all. And this is a model example of how a love track should be written — when people TAKE TIME to get to know each other, and ONLY THEN fall in love.

The “Vaa vaa anbe” song placement is perfect because it’s an intense love song and by the time it comes on, their relationship is similarly at an intense level”

These days it is almost impossible to make a movie without a “technical” plot hole, technology being so pervasive that if you take one side, you gotta give the other a miss, if you want to make up a coherently linked story.

Arimanambi is a good example. The entire network, the cellular network, and everything else in between is supposed to go down for forty five minutes, based on some silly ministers pass phrase, and well, dudes at the police control room seem immune to all this.

Thuppakki is another with a non trackable phone which the villain has, in Yennai Arinthal, they forgot to track, the list goes on…Someone gotta be fooled, and usually it is the audience. All the education I got, was from the movies.

I wish I had not wasted 3 hours a Sunday morning watching this movie – ‘I’, that too so late. I should have read reviews before deciding to go. But we’ll have to give credit to Shankar (and other artists) for keeping me seated inside the theater for three hours without a story!